How To Make Your Smart Home “Smarter”

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With the way technology works these days, owning a smart home has become even more exciting. From your home’s lighting, temperature control and even safety, the devices you can add are almost limitless. These things can easily make you want to keep adding more. If you already own a smart home and currently thinking of upgrading it, here’s a quick rundown of what you need to do to make your smart home “smarter”

Add voice-controlled devices

Back then, voice-controlled devices can only play music. Now, there are voice-controlled devices that can act as your assistants. They can set your alarms, control your lights and even give you directions even without pressing any buttons. Some of these devices can even alert you if anything unusual happens at home.

Install smart lighting

Automating your lights can slash a huge portion of your electricity bill. Pair them with sensors, dimmers and wireless control and you’ll be able to save even more.

You can set your lights to turn on and off depending on your personal schedule or add motion sensors so you won’t waste energy. You can even use your smartphone to control the brightness, color as well as the ambiance of your home.

If your smart phone isn’t enough, you can install a smart device that can notify you when you have left your lights on. One good example is Neurio. Apart from the alerts, this device can also give you an estimate of how much energy your home has already consumed.

Secure your router

When you’re building a smart home, your concern shouldn’t be limited to the kinds of devices you’ll invest in; you also have to take proper measures on how you’ll secure everything inside it.

Your router is one of your home’s weakest spots. Much like your front door, you should strengthen it to keep intruders out.

Start by changing your password. As soon as your receive your router, change its default password with something that can’t easily be guessed. Refrain from using your birth year or the last digits of your phone number. As much as possible, create a lengthy password and make sure to use alphanumeric characters to make it even harder to crack.

It’s also a good idea to constantly upgrade your security software to decrease your devices’ vulnerability to new threats, like spying tools and viruses. Install a malware protection to prevent suspicious and malicious programs from running on your computer.

Upgrade your smoke detector

An ordinary smoke detector that gets activated can cause confusion, especially if you have several units at home. If it isn’t monitored, there’s no way you’ll get alerted about a possible fire- unless you have some friendly neighbors looking after your home. For your safety and security, it’s best if you can upgrade your smoke detector to something smarter.

Most smart smoke detectors today are industrial grade and can last really long. Some of them even come with dedicated apps to help make monitoring a lot easier. Apart from battery life, they can also tell you exactly which area of the house is showing increased temperature. They can even connect you to your local police and firemen for quick resolution.

These extra features can mean a higher price tag. However, considering that they can augment your home security and initiate a faster response, they can be considered as valuable investments.

If you are on a tight budget and investing in new devices seems not feasible at the moment, your next best option is to invest in a device that can turn ordinary devices to smart ones, like Weebee Home Automation. It’s a scalable system so you can add as much devices as you want.

Get a smart doorbell

As home automation becomes even more sophisticated, you’ll find yourself being able to do the things that seemed impossible before. Take, for example, answering your door even if you’re not physically at home.

You’ll be able to tell the delivery man where to leave your parcel or check on someone who’s been showing interest on your front gate for several days. Burglars favor houses that are unoccupied. By being able to answer the door and show that you can see what’s happening around your property, you’ll be able to make your home a lot less favorable for burglary.

Smart doorbells can do so much more than that, especially when they are equipped with the right features. With night vision capabilities, live streaming and two-way talk feature, you’ll be able to detect intruders and burglars even before they execute their plans. You can even record videos to serve as hard evidence in case someone managed to get inside your property.

Also, by monitoring your feed, you can check on your kids if they had arrived safely from school. You can also get alerts whenever they leave the house without your permission.

Over To You

How Smart is your Home? Have you upgraded all your security devices and installed new ones available in the market? Have you made your home “safe enough”? I would give this a second thought and re-visit all the points mentioned above to have a stress-free life without having to worry about your home safety. Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Praveen Rajarao is an Entrepreneur and in his spare time blogs on his website –http://www.dailymorningcoffee.com and http://www.pbgeeks.com. His topics range from blogging to technology to affiliate programs and making money online and how-to guides. Daily Morning Coffee is also accepting Guest Posts from Professional Bloggers at this time, take a look at “Write For DMC” page for more details on the same.

I love my smart door bell. I can see anyone who comes to my door even when I’m not at home. It makes my wife feel a lot safer and I just think it is really cool that I can answer the door from work. Comes in handy when I’m expecting a package!

Some of the more powerful Streaming media devices on the market are now partnering with Google Assistant. To have an all in one media device for games, media, and smart home voice commands.
Nvidia Shield Streaming media player and smart home controller.Streamingpete recently posted…Bose Sound link Vs Specter AQSTIX Blue Tooth Speaker

When home automation first hit the market a few years ago, a lot of real estate professionals were very interested to see what kind of staying power it would have. It’s certainly come a long way, and whole system integration has become a very strong selling point for tech-savvy buyers. My only concern is long-term security, and the prevalance of new owners ignoring existing home features. I can’t tell you how many homes I show that have multiple cable/satellite setups that have not been uninstalled by whatever the new service provider is. I’m a little worried that this might be the same with home automation, and networked systems may stay active on homes long after the owners have moved on. It will be interesting to see what new developments arise over the next 5-10 years.Elaine recently posted…How to Prevent Soil Erosion in North Texas

Technology is making our lives even better but we human should not be dependent entirely on the gadgets.
for smart homes, there are a lot of cool gadgets like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomePod, Logitech Harmony, Smart Switches, Philips Hue Smart LED Bulbs and what not. By installing all these kits, we can control our home’s lighting, Appliances, Thermostat, Doorbells through our voice. These all integrations would be super interesting and create something like we watched in Iron Man movie. Everything controlled by voice.
Anyways, Thanks for the post. Enjoyed the read.Jayant Gosain recently posted…How to Hide Snap Map location on Snapchat

If your un-password-protected smartphone fell into the wrong hands and you hadn’t logged out of the app that unlocks your front door. So it’s more critical than ever to keep smartphones secure. Before purchasingproducts or installing apps, even those to control your connected home, read the Privacy Policy to see what types of data the app will access from your smartphone, what data it will collect, and what will be done with that data.

Hi,
Thank you for sharing valuable information. Now a days many people build own houses , but they don’t know how make house smart. For that, people spending more money. So, Am referring to all. Every body read this blog. Then, you can get gud idea for how make smart house

Technology is certainly helping to make a difference in home security. You pointed out some great opportunities to strengthen our home’s defenses, especially the section on routers. It seems that many folks are still sticking with the small and simple passwords that are easy to crack. Thanks for your article.

Thanks Praveen for your valuable info.
Your article is very helpful to identify the benefits of smart home.Before reading your post I was not aware of these systems.Thanks a lot to draw my attention by pointing out some great feature of the said fact.

I would like to point out that securing Wi-Fi by using complicated password should be enough, but restricting foreign MAC addresses is your best bet if you want to be really secure.
Also raspberry pi solutions promise so much potential to make your home truly unique.

Thanks for all these, Praveen. I really think smartphones are underused. There is a lot more things they can do and this post beautifully highlight a good number of them I like the part about the smart door bell.Isaac recently posted…Best Auto Repair POS Software

Everyone wants to make their home smarter by using latest technology appliances in their homes. The tips shared above for making the home smarter are very good and effective. Anyone can follow the given tips. Among all the tips, I like the smart lighting very much, hope to install them very soon.
Thanks for sharing this important article with us.

I have always wanted to take full control of my home but I never thought I could do it remotely. Thanks for letting me know that having a home automation service can definitely make my home smarter. Much appreciated!

Helpful articles, thank you sir. I can see anyone who comes to my door even when I’m not at home. It makes my wife feel a lot safer and I just think it is really cool that I can answer the door from workTaufik Firmansyah recently posted…How to Donate A Car in California

Great list. One day you will have everything available on your mobile. Heating and cooling is a good one to automate via smart home for saving money on power.
A bit worrying though as I imagine in 30 years everyone’s house will be entirely smart, which could turn into a disaster if you got hacked!